This is a great story. But perhaps a story of survivorship bias as well?<p>It would be interesting to know if this happened 3 months, 6 months, or several years after TACODA was working on their product.<p>According to this Rho ventures article, TACODA was founded in 2001. <a href="http://www.rhoventures.com/new-media-Tacoda-case-sudy.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.rhoventures.com/new-media-Tacoda-case-sudy.htm</a> They raised 12M from Union Square in 2006. Fred Wilson states he was an early angel investor, and that this conversation occurred early.<p>My question is - Did they pivot because they raised a lot of money and were under pressure from investors? Or was it the right thing to do?<p>They certainly had a successful exit by selling to AOL a year later for a good chunk. Hard to argue with that.<p>But, then AOL shuttered it, and there's not much data on why (other than the "AOL are incompetent" trope)<p>So, did they sell AOL a time bomb? Or did AOL screw it up?
"Sometimes you have the right product but the wrong business model"<p>This is the 3rd time I've heard a variant of this in the past couple of days. Most of the time when I think of a pivot I imagine changing the product pretty substantially, but I think this seems more true to the analogy. I've seen some success in changing my business model as I started pitching again recently. People are responding much better to our new approach than the one we had a year ago. (Not that successful pitches are the same thing as real success)
I love stories like this..<p>I personally know of a similar story on a smaller scale, where a consulting team was developing custom web solutions for client after client (in the CRM space), and one day decided to turn their product into a SAAS offering instead.<p>They went from selling 3-4 sites a year to having several hundred clients in about 3 years, and even spinning the SAAS business out into it's own separate company that is now 10x the size of the consulting company (which they still run for other types of custom work).<p>So it's definitely true that sometimes the pivot is in the approach and not the product.<p>And isn't that basically the 37 Signals success story also? They took their custom products and turned them into SAAS offerings..
My worry, though, is how do you know you're reaching a local maxima? What's the tip off that the slow-going is a sign that you need to change directions and not just work harder?
I think successful "pivots" like this usually have to do with rebalancing the risk of the customers. In the article's example, the risk is shifted away from the publishers ("am I sure this software will be worth it?") to the startup ("we only make money when this works").<p>To my eyes, even the more traditional enterprise-to-SaaS model shifts that are happening reflect the same trend - trading the (customer) risks of big $$$ up-front, long implementation etc for the (startup) risks of needing to attract more customers to make the same amount of $$$.
Absolutely correct for an entrepreneur.<p>But If you are in good job but feel bored. here is my version<p>You may have the right job but the wrong working model.
Fixing the working model can fix ur work life.